Postcolonial Political Theory

Postcolonial political theory is an emerging subfield of political theory, although its parameters and particular meanings are less than clearly defined and subject to contestation. Related to a more general critique of political theory’s traditional Eurocentric bias, postcolonial political theory is motivated by three key issues: first, how colonialism shaped the traditional Western canon; second, the broad silence on colonialism and its legacies in mainstream political theorizing; and third, the tensions, particularly within liberal political theory, between its universal pretentions and culturally specific Western location of articulation. The scope of inquiry in postcolonial political theory is broadly responsive to postcolonialism, a body of thought concerned with tracing, engaging, and responding to the cultural, political, social, and economic legacies of Western colonialism, particularly the period of European colonial rule between the 18th and mid-20th centuries. With a particular emphasis on the relationship between power and knowledge, postcolonial theories and approaches take the development of modernity as coterminous with European colonial and imperial projects, and therefore examine the ways in which modern systems of knowledge are implicated in colonial relations of power. Postcolonial political theory similarly treats political modernity as imprinted by Western colonialism and imperialism, making for distinct political dynamics, problems, and forms of injustice, on the one hand, and shaping the history of European political thought, on the other. In this regard, postcolonial political theory does not just call for a widening of the remit of political theory beyond the traditional European canon to include non-Western texts, voices, and perspectives. It also raises profound questions about the ways in which the categories, ideas, and assumptions of political theory have been complicit in and served to legitimize the domination of colonized peoples and indigenous, non-Western, and subaltern minorities. Postcolonial political theory seeks to articulate alternative modes of theorizing that can better speak to the concerns of justice for the formerly colonized, indigenous peoples, and those affected by the neo-imperial features of the current global order. An important element of this is concerned with methodology, in particular the use of multidisciplinary insights from history, cultural studies, and anthropology, among others, as well as thinkers and texts that would not conventionally be considered “political” according to dominant Western conceptions of politics.